excellence, actually

91% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. That’s because behavior change is really hard. Which means that the only real way to make new habits stick is to build them in the right way. Today, we’re giving you a few ideas on how to do just that, exploring why values-driven goals beat outcome-based ones, how to design your environment for success rather than relying on motivation or willpower, and why starting small (really small) is the secret key to radical reinvention. We’ll talk using your phone less, moving more, and allowing yourself to keep procrastinating (sometimes).Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletterJoin The Growth Equation Academy If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidPocketCastsYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're ringing in 2026 by bringing you 26 lessons that will help you achieve excellence in whatever it is you do. These are the the habits, practices, and mindsets that we revisit so often in our work and that have proven effective in creating a foundation for high-level achievement. Consider this your cheat sheet: Give yourself credit for the things you're doing well, notice areas you might like to improve, and then come along with us for another year of trying to help you perform your best at the things you care about most.Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcriptClick to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletterJoin The Growth Equation Academy If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidPocketCastsYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Merry Christmas! We're taking a little break, so we're bringing you an episode with an all-time great athlete, Courtney Dauwalter, whose interview, two years later, still delivers some all-time great advice on excellence. Here's the original intro...01/04/24: Last summer, ultrarunner Courtney Dauwalter did something that had never been done before. She ran three of the sport's most iconic 100-mile races... within 10 weeks of each other... and won all three. (She also set the women's course record on two of them.) It was an incredible achievement, even for someone who has long established herself as one of the greatest ultraunners of all-time. How does she do what she does? Through a rare mixture of joy, curiosity, and intensity that will change how you think about competition and ignite your own self-belief. Here, she talks about what she calls "the triple," why she goes in search of the pain cave, the unique visualizations and mantras that she uses to help her solve problems on the trail (like the time she went 98% blind), and how she manages to always keep "joy in the front seat."Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletterJoin The Growth Equation Academy If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidPocketCastsYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just last month, Sasha DiGiulian completed only the fourth ever free climb (and the first by a woman) of "Platinum," a route on El Capitan—a 23-day feat that tested her physical and mental boundaries, including nine days of being stuck in a hanging portaledge 2600 feet above the ground to wait out inclement weather. Sasha opens up about overcoming fear, handling adversity with grace and patience (she underwent five hip surgeries to reconstruct both her hips that kept her out of climbing for a year), and the mindsets that have fueled her success both on and off the rock. She discusses why she climbs, how she uses fear and risk, and what she's learned about finding "an attitude of gratitude" for the intense pain that accompanies rock climbing.Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcriptClick to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletterJoin The Growth Equation Academy If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidPocketCastsYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At some point, we're all going to suffer. So what if you treated it as a practice—something to be done skillfully? This was the question Matt posed to himself when he came back to running in his late twenties, after quitting the sport following his senior spring season of high school track. He said he'd become fearful of the pain of racing. He was scared to suffer. He's spent the last two and a half decades mastering his mind. In the time since, he's become a successful run coach, an endurance athlete, and a writer. And he's learned many valuable lessons about what it is to suffer. (Most recently, while dealing with a particularly bad bout of long Covid that left him incapable of exercise for long periods of time, he suffered through a 100K in 90-degree heat on minimal training.) Today, he talks about the mantra he uses to get himself through difficult moments, the most common mistakes he sees athletes making over and over again throughout his years of coaching, why never being satisfied is a good thing, and his practice of what he calls "benevolent shaming."Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcriptClick to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletterJoin The Growth Equation Academy If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidPocketCastsYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.